News

Libyans poised to open £10m London embassy

LIBYA is set to buy a £10m town house in one of London’s most exclusive streets as a “flagship embassy” for Colonel Gadaffi’s regime in Britain. An eight-bedroom “Italianate villa” in Holland Park is being sold privately to the Libyans by the Sultan of Brunei, one of the world’s richest men.

The deal, expected to be signed over the next few weeks, is designed to raise the profile of the regime after it agreed this summer to compensate the families of the victims of the Lockerbie bomb attack in 1988.

Its acceptance of responsibility for the atrocity paved the way for the United Nations to lift sanctions, although America has refused to restore diplomatic relations as it still considers the regime a “state sponsor of terrorism”.

Libya last had such a high-profile presence in Britain in 1984, when its diplomats were expelled after WPC Yvonne Fletcher was shot dead outside